British farmers warn of bitter harvest
China DailyBritain's farming industry was a key issue in the Brexit debate. The setting of William Blake's poem is a love song to England's green and pleasant land, and its status as an unofficial second national anthem shows how much feeling it stirs in so many people. In the run-up to the 2016 referendum on European Union membership, then-farming minister George Eustice told the BBC "virtually every problem that the complains to me about is a direct consequence of dysfunctional EU law", and that farmers who "want to see change and a better future" should vote to leave. The union declined to take a formal stance but told members that on the "balance of existing evidence", their interests were best served by continued membership. EU membership meant being subject to the Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, an arrangement that existed "to improve agricultural productivity, so that consumers have a stable supply of affordable food" and, crucially, "to ensure that EU farmers can make a reasonable living" largely through a subsidy system.
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British farmers warn of bitter harvest
China Daily
British farmers warn of bitter harvest
China Daily
British farmers warn of bitter harvest
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